


Dodged Bullets (Or the Lives We Didn't Live)

by weezly14



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unrequited Love, possibly au?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1239070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weezly14/pseuds/weezly14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He wants to say: I would've been a good dad."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dodged Bullets (Or the Lives We Didn't Live)

**Author's Note:**

> A few years ago my mom had this friend. And his son had this girlfriend - they'd been dating since he was 14, and when he was 19 she broke up with him. Time passes - he starts dating someone else - and we find out his ex is pregnant. And it's not his, but I just couldn't imagine what he must've felt. The person you probably had all your firsts with, who probably broke your heart - and she's pregnant. And that could've been yours. But it's not. 
> 
> I have a lot of feelings about Mickey and Rose and the life that could've been had the Doctor not shown up. And I wonder what it would've been like, for Mickey - trying to move on - if they'd been around more. 
> 
> So, enjoy.

            He finds out she’s pregnant from her mum.

            Pops ‘round to fix the telly and she says to him, “Rose is pregnant, you know.”

            Only he didn’t know.

            But he just says, “Oh.”

            “Three months gone already.”

            “Just told you, did she?”

            “No,” she says. “Known for weeks.”

            _Why didn’t you tell me?_ He wants to ask.

            “She didn’t want anyone to know yet.”

            “Oh,” he says again.

            “Yeah.”

            He fixes the telly—just a cord unplugged, easy—probably staged. Jackie hugs him before he goes.

            (It feels like pity.)

            He doesn’t send the text he starts writing; goes to the pub instead.

            ( _Congratulations._ )

\---

            He’s leaving for work when he sees her across the way, smiling and swinging her hand—the hand _he’s_ holding.

            He doesn’t call out hello.

            She’s not showing yet, though, he notices.

            He’s not sure he’ll be able to handle that, honestly.

\---

            She’ll be a good mum, he thinks.

            Not sure what sort of father the Doctor’ll make, though.

            (Not sure he’d be much better.)

\---

            And it’s not fair, because he was her best mate, ‘sides Shareen—was the one who comforted her after that tosser Jimmy Stone, who gave her flowers on Valentine’s day and told her she was beautiful. Was her first kiss.

            And maybe he wasn’t the best boyfriend, but he made her laugh, and he didn’t shout at her or make her feel less than, and he’d fix whatever needed fixing at her mum’s, and he’d meet her for lunch some days, and he—

            Well. He loved her.

\---

            Loves her.

\---

            She didn’t cheat on him, at least.

            Had the decency to break up with him first.

            (It’s a week—barely a week—before she’s started up with _him_.)

            (Honestly, though, he’d known it was going to happen the first time he saw them together.)

            (Didn’t make it hurt any less, though.)

\---

            Jackie calls and says the sink’s backed up.

            He tells her to call Rose’s boyfriend if something needs fixing.

\---

            He hears from Shareen that Rose is back with her mum.

            “Trouble in paradise?”

            “She’s upset.”

            “Yeah? And why you telling me?”

            “Thought you’d care. My mistake.”

            She hangs up on him.

            He doesn’t send the text he starts writing. Goes to the pub instead.

            ( _I’m here if you need anything._ )

\---

            He sees her sitting on the swings on his way home from work. She’s showing, now. She’s glowing.

            He thinks she ought to look happier.

            _Tosser_.

            He’s not sure why he does it, but he sits in the swing next to her.

            “Look about ready to burst, you do.”

            “Shut up,” she says, but she’s smiling a bit.

            “Not too long now, yeah?”

            “Yeah.”

            He wants to ask what happened. Where her Doctor is now.

            Wants to ask her why him.

            Why not _him_.

            She rests her hand on her belly. Cries softly, silently.

            He sits with her until the sun sets.

\---

            He wants to say:

            _I would’ve been a good dad._

_I wouldn’t have left._

_I would’ve loved you._

\---

            He wants to say:

            _I love you._

\---

            He says: “Call me if you need anything.”

            She hugs him, and it’s strange. Because he knows what hugging her feels like, and it doesn’t feel like this. Awkward and short and with another man’s child between them.

            She gives him a kiss on the cheek and says, “Thanks, Mickey.”

            It’s the first time she’s said his name in years.

\---

            He’d always figured it would happen. Eventually she’d spend more time at his flat than her mum’s, and he’d save up and buy a ring but she’d be practically living with him already anyway, and they’d have a small wedding at the courthouse, a dinner at her mum’s after, in their best clothes, and not much would change but maybe eventually she’d forget to take birth control and they’d argue over the names and Jackie would cry and nag at him and Rose would probably nag at him, too, but smiling and not entirely seriously, and he’d spend an afternoon trying to put the crib together and she’d tease him all through that, too, and maybe it wouldn’t be much, maybe it wouldn’t be exciting, but it wouldn’t be a terrible life. It’d be an average one, as good a life as you could wish for on the estate.

            He sees her get off the bus, walk up the stairs to her mum’s, looking even more pregnant than before, and there’s a twinge (there’s always a twinge) and a sense that for as right as it all seems, it’s wrong, too.

            He can’t shake the feeling that it should be his child she’s carrying.

            He’d love it, anyway. Unlike him.

\---

            She texts him one day.

            _Can you give me a ride?_

            He doesn’t hesitate.

            _When?_

            Pause.

            _This afternoon._

            _Of course._

 _Thanks Mickey_ _J_

He hasn’t seen her smile in weeks.

            Supposes it’s the thought that counts.

\---

            He takes her to a doctor’s appointment. Sits in the waiting room with her, flips uninterestedly through the magazines on parenting, just for something to do. She fidgets beside him and he wants to put a hand on her leg, to calm her, but he’s not her boyfriend or the father of her child and he’s not sure how he’s allowed to touch her, anymore.

            The nurse calls her name and she gets up and doesn’t give him a second glance, and he’d leave if it wouldn’t make him an arsehole.

            “So, is it a boy or girl?” he asks on the ride back to the estate, just for something to say.

            “Dunno.”

            “No?”

            “He didn’t want to find out. Wanted to be surprised.”

            “Gonna be surprised by a lot of things, whenever he turns up.”

            It’s a terrible thing to say, terrible way to bring it up, to ask what happened.

            She doesn’t respond.

            It’s worse than if she’d cried or yelled or hit him.

            They don’t say anything for the rest of the ride.

\---

            He walks her to her mum’s flat because he feels like shit for what he said before, and because it seems like the sort of thing a nice bloke would do, and he’s a nice bloke, right?

            The Doctor’s sitting on the floor against Jackie’s door, pulling at his hair, and he feels Rose stiffen beside him.

            Looks like shit, he does, hasn’t shaved in a few days, bags under his eyes, clothes rumpled. He breathes Rose’s name, jumps up to his feet, moves toward her but she takes a step back and he cringes.

            “Rose—”

            “Go away,” he says, and Mickey fights back a smile. Good for her. Not just letting him waltz back in.

            “Rose—”

            “She said leave, mate.”

            The door opens and Jackie ushers Rose inside, but not without shooting the Doctor a withering stare, and then the door shuts and it’s just the Doctor and Mickey. The Doctor runs a hand across his face.

            “Fuck,” he breathes, and he didn’t strike him as the sort of bloke who swore, and it humanizes him a bit, but Mickey doesn’t want to humanize him, he wants to hate him because Rose picked him instead—because he had Rose and he _left_.

            “What’d you expect?” he can’t help asking. The Doctor just shrugs.

            “I dunno. That?” He sinks back down, leans against the door. He should go, but he’s getting a perverse sort of enjoyment in seeing the Doctor in pain. “How—how is she?”

            “How d’you think?”

            He nods.

            “I didn’t—I was scared.”

            “No shit. What about her?”

            “I fucked up. Know what that feels like?”

            Oh. He knows.

            “Piss off,” Mickey tells him by way of goodbye, but he gets no response.

            _Wanker_.

\---

            Together, properly, two years, never so much as a scare. She’d always been careful, first condoms then birth control. No room for accidents.

            Not a year with the Doctor and she managed to get herself knocked up.

            He thinks he’s supposed to feel relieved—dodged bullet there, could’ve been his kid—but that’s the problem, isn’t it?

            Could’ve been his kid.

            (He can’t tell if he should be offended or not. That she’d been so careful to not get pregnant with him, but hadn’t cared nearly as much with _him_.)

\---

            On his way home from work he sees her on the swings again, only the Doctor’s on the swing beside her. He’s talking, and Rose is listening or not listening, he can’t tell, really, from here—and then she gets up and the Doctor follows her and grabs her arm and pulls her to him and she goes, presses her face into his chest, and Mickey can tell even from where he’s standing that she’s crying. And the Doctor’s got his arms around her, talking in her ear, and maybe he’s crying, too.

            Mickey goes home.

\---

            He hears from Shareen that Rose is back with him.

            “He came back—sat outside their flat for two days—and apologized.”

            “And she took him back.”

            Shareen sighs.

            “He _left._ ”

            “Yeah, but he came back.”

\---

            He never would’ve left, though, see?

            What’s love built on? Passion, and instability, and coming back? Or dependability, and never leaving in the first place?

\---

            When she ended things with him, she told him that she loved him, course she did. Just, wasn’t _in love_ with him. Not anymore. And it wasn’t fair to him, or to her, to stick around just ‘cause it was comfortable and familiar.

            “You deserve more than that,” she’d said, but what she’d meant was, “I want more than _this_.”

            And she didn’t cheat on him, it’s true. Waited a few days before starting up with the Doctor.

            Still.

            Wasn’t fair on him, because what if he didn’t _want_ more?

\---

            (Their first date. Proper one. Took her out to a nice dinner. Wore a collared shirt and everything. He thinks he knew then that he could’ve spent forever with her.)

            (He wonders if she knew then that she couldn’t.)

\---

            He runs into Jackie at a Tesco’s.

            “Rose is due any day, now,” she tells him, though he didn’t ask.

            “Good for her.”

            “Yeah.”

            She grabs a package of biscuits, puts it in her basket.

            “He’s proposed, you know.”

            Only he didn’t know.

            But he just says, “Oh.”

            “Last week. Wanted to kick him out in the street, never let him near my Rose again, but he’s different, since he left. He’s more affectionate with her, more doting. Oh, he was always gone for her—always knew that—but he’s more—”

            “Jackie,” he says, because he _can’t_ —“I don’t care, all right?”

            She just smiles at him. Sad. Something like pity, and maybe understanding.

            “I wanted her to chose you,” she tells him.

            “Yeah, well, she didn’t, did she?”

            He walks off before Jackie can say anymore.

\---

            It’s a boy.

            They call him Peter.

\---

            He goes to the pub.

\---

            (There’s a text in his drafts he doesn’t send.)

            ( _Congratulations._ )


End file.
